“The Praekelt Foundation, a South African organization that runs several mobile-based programs in South Africa, recently produced a catchy video infographic of mobile statistics for Africa. Looking at accessibility, growth, and usage, the video gives a good look at how mobiles have taken off in in the continent of Africa.

The video covers a lot of facts about mobiles, from a breakdown of the rapid growth of mobile phones compared to other forms of media (like radio and television) to the huge drop in price points (the first mobile phone cost US $3995 in 1973 compared to roughly US $15 for certain models today).” READ MORE

“You don’t usually get this many smart suits at a development conference, but Indigo Trust‘s The Power of Information: New Technologies for Philanthropy and Development at trendy Kings Place was seeking to bring together money, technology and the developing world.

These are some notes written live during the day. [The Twitter hashtag with loads of good comments and links is #giveandtech]

Philip Thigo from the socialmedia from development organisation SODNET in Kenya intelligently laid out the vast range of this issue, both technologically and demographically but also politically and ethically.” READ MORE

“By shining a light on the ways in which governments in developing countries invest aid, natural resource revenues and other public resources, transparency can turbo-charge accountability, helping ordinary citizens to hold their governments to account. This can play an important role in reducing corruption, improving the delivery of essential public services such as health and education, enhancing the climate for growth and investment, and accelerating countries’ progress along the road out of poverty, towards prosperity and beyond aid dependence.” READ MORE

“As we’ve blogged before, Global Integrity is working to promote the new Open Government Partnership by serving as the OGP’s Networking Mechanism, which aims to connect aspiring OGP governments with providers of open government expertise (whether governments, civil society organizations, or private companies) to help those aspiring governments develop innovative, “stretch” open government commitments.” READ MORE

“Zambians went to the polls on Sept. 20 to vote in presidential, parliamentary and local elections. The Civil Society Election Coalition (CSEC), made up of eight civil society groups, fielded election monitors across the country to observe the electoral process before, during and after the vote. With more than 900 monitors reporting, the CSEC found that so far the election process, while not perfect, has been generally smooth and peaceful.” READ MORE